This, here, is a personal story about baseball and my life in 3 parts. Buckle up, it's a long one!
Part One:
It was 2002, I was halfway through second grade, I had lived in south Florida for hardly a year and a half at the time, and I was eight years old. My dad came from work and picked me up from Coral Springs Elementary School, roughly three o’clock. I was standing right next to the blue-colored post with my teacher, Mrs. Mitchell—she was the bomb, easily one of my favorite teachers ever. I made eye-contact with her and pointed to the purple Plymouth Voyager my parents owned. She smiled and nodded and said “See you Monday, Donny!” My dad waved to Mrs. Mitchell, I shut the door of the van, and we rode down 110th Avenue, took a right onto Sample Road, and made our way home to the apartment in which my family lived. Curiously, my dad asked me how I’d feel about signing up for baseball this year.
Naturally, I was sort of naïve, I had no idea that I had to sign up to play baseball. I loved baseball and I thought I was kind of good, although I had only ever played in my own yard, hitting off a tee, playing catch with my ol’ man, hitting his slow pitches, all that fun stuff. Heck, I went to softball pickup games my dad played every Sunday, and oftentimes in the middle of innings, one of the guys would toss me a few pitches, and I would try to give ‘em a good whack with my little bat. I smiled back at my dad and, instead of a simple “yes,” I asked him “when?” Clearly, I was eager to play ball.
So I signed up for Little League that weekend. My dad registered to become a coach—specifically to manage. The league either did not have room for another team, or did not want to choose my father over the other fathers who have, perhaps, been part of the league with their kids in years prior. I went to the try-outs, and did my best. And by “did my best,” I mean I hardly hit a ball pitched to me, I couldn’t field a grounder to save my life, and catching a flyball was obviously not my forte. However, I could throw pretty well—for an eight year old—and when I did hit a ball, it was pretty hard. My base running showed pretty good promise, though my arms pumped three times faster than my legs moved. What was somewhat odd, was that I was considered “league age” 9, and so I was registered in the Super 9’s Division.
About two weeks or so following the try-out, my dad picked me up from school, and told me he got a call from one of the coaches. I was elated. Until I found out that I was picked by the Reds! I had been a Pirates fan my whole life—and I still am! The disappointment I felt was lifted slightly when my dad told me, “but at least there’s not a Pirates team in your league,” but only slightly. Then my dad told me “playing for the Reds definitely beats playing for the Spankees!” and that made me laugh, because, well, it was true! I have also been a life-long disliker of the Yankees—sorry to disappoint, Yankees fans, but, uhh… Go Bucs, and Go Sox!
That first year, I learned to play baseball for real. Maybe I knew the rules and knew the fundamentals, but I could hardly execute the fundamentals and mechanics. I threw sidearm most of the time, I pulled my front foot and dropped my shoulder when I swung, and I tried to make catches with one hand. By the end of the season, though, I wasn’t as afraid of ground balls, I threw more over-the-top, and I stole a bunch of bases!
The following year, my dad became a manager. And that year, I became, for the first time, a Pirate! I was extremely happy, except for my having to wear jersey number 10. My favorite number is, and always has been 4. Anyway, league age 10, and playing ball in the AAA Division (10, 11, 12). This would become, ironically, one of my favorite seasons of baseball of my whole life. We went 0-18-1. Tied the very first game, and lost every single one after that. On a positive note, every kid learned to play every single position. I learned to play catcher, and it became my favorite position, alongside pitcher. Not only did I like catching, but I became pretty good at it.
A few years later, the age cutoff dates were changed, and I fell back into the age bracket in which I should have been initially—thus playing a second season as a twelve-year-old. And then AAA turned into Juniors, then Juniors to Seniors. Eight years of Little League baseball flew by. My dad coached all of them but one. He coached my little brother, Jagger, too—also the Pirates when he managed. Since Jagger was two years younger, he and I never played in the same division. However, Jagger would often come to my practices, and, on one occasion, while I played Junior ball, Jagger pitched at my practice. He likes having the bragging rights to say he struck me out. Twice. At the same practice. My dad has poked some fun at me because of that too since then.
My dad became known as one of the best coaches at Coral Springs American Little League. He had a habit of teaching kids. Which is what Little League is about. It isn’t about winning every single game—it’s hardly about winning at all. Little League is an instructional league; it’s about learning to play baseball and having fun. It’s about learning life lessons—virtues like patience and humility, respect and teamwork. My dad put kids in positions they hardly, if ever, played before. They would learn to play those positions, and they would usually figure out how to play them well. Watching my dad in action as a Little League coach over the years was one of the greatest things I never realized I would miss.
The only positions my dad wouldn’t make a kid play were catcher and pitcher. We’d all play the positions at least once. I remember, back in AAA, we had this kid Kevin, who could not throw a ball further than a few inches from his toes. “Rag arm,” would be a compliment to his throwing ability back then. I don’t think he had ever thrown a ball before. He pitched an inning that year. He didn’t reach the plate every time, even walked a few kids, but he pitched a few groundouts! Kevin became a buddy of mine, as everyone on the team did each other. My dad picked him for our Junior team the next year. Kevin was set to start a game that year. He struck a kid out. We lost our minds—I laughed loudly while standing in Center Field, thinking “no freaking way! Go Kevin!” The whole team in the dugout patted him on the back, and he smiled quite a bit. THAT. That’s what Little League is all about.
The only time my dad would pick line-ups and positioning for wins was typically during the second half of the season, after all the players had finally shown their potential and ability. And only from Junior ball, onward. We played in the “Blue” division the first year of Junior ball. “Blue” division was to the “Red” division, stupidly enough, essentially what “AAA” was to “Little League Majors,” (AAA and LL Majors were all 10, 11, and 12-year-old kids). That year, there were two teams in the “Red” division. “Red” teams played interleague (with other cities/clubs), and were supposed to be the better players. One of the coaches in the “Red” division always picked the same set of players each year since we were eight, and they were, mostly, very cocky kids who felt superior to everyone in the “Blue” division. They weren’t. There were some truly gifted ballplayers in the “Blue” division, and it was wonderful playing with them. That specific team happened to be
Both years in Junior ball, we were the champs, going 17-4 and 19-5, respectively. The second season, we played a practice game against that same team from the “Red” division the previous season. They were the same team, aside from three players—one had moved to the Senior division, the other two were not a part of that coaches constant “superior” teams over the years. We had nine players at that practice—one left early, and we had to utilize a player from the other team. It was sweet to beat them by two runs, but even sweeter, we did it with three pitchers, two of whom were not either of our top three (one of our top three only pitched the first inning), and we did it shorthanded (the kid we borrowed didn’t bat for us) while moving players around every inning. The whole team showed off our versatility and skill on the diamond.
I played on the Junior All-Star team in 2008, which was eliminated after three games in the District round. To this day, I still believe that if that coach (same coach, 9/15 of the same team as that “Red” division team previously mentioned) had not played favorites and kept players who were doing well in their positions and at the plate, we would have made it to the Sectional finals. While playing Right Field and Second Base over a total of 5 innings played in those three games, I made three putouts, with three assists—one which was a game-saving diving play at second, throwing out the go-ahead run, another was a double play. In four plate appearances, I singled twice, doubled, walked, a lined out to third base. I was even called to pinch run for our catcher on one occasion, on which I stole second base, took third on a wild pitch, and scored on the subsequent hit.
Maybe I sound a little bitter about that coach, but only because he was a biased coach, whose own son didn’t play a single All-Star game though he filled a line-up spot. His son was not All-Star material anyway, though I was on good terms with the kid. He wasn’t a bad ballplayer, just not All-Star material. And the ol’ man was definitely not All-Star coach material. After we were knocked out of the Divisional tournament, I actually was added to the Senior division’s roster as a reserve player. Little League (at least at the time) allows 14-year-olds to play in the 15/16-year-old division, if requested and selected by a coach. I was only on the team for two games, their latter of four. They won the first and lost the second. We narrowly escaped the third-beginning the game with nine players, ending with ten, luckily, but winning by a run. The last game, we were eliminated by ten-run rule, I think 13-2 after five innings (Junior/Senior divisions only played seven innings).
Senior ball came around, officially. Pirates again, with my dad as the coach; a few of the same players from the year prior, as well as a few more from other seasons. Both years, we ran it. It was not about winning, though we did. We were CSALL Senior champs both years, we won the Strong Team District 10 Tournament, and dropped the Sectional Tournament to Northwest Little League at their home field in Fort Lauderdale. We had played them three times previously that season, winning two and dropping two—all but one in which the ten-runned us were close games. We had great respect for them, and they for us as well.
Both years, I played on the All-Star team winning Districts both times. The first time around, we were eliminated from the Sectional Tournament in the Semi-Finals. The final year, we were eliminated in the Sectional finals by the same team who had beaten us two games earlier. Both times, we all felt that there was something off with that team. Two players on my team made a comment about a player, on the other all-star team, saying that they not only thought he was 17, but that he had not played in his respective league all season. That kid pitched, too. And he threw heat. Mid-80’s. That’s pretty high heat for 15/16-year old kids.
It happened to be revealed a day before the Florida State Tournament that not only was that player not registered, that All-Star team used two other players who were ineligible to play. One only registered in the league during the final quarter of the league’s season, and the other was not initially named to the All-Star roster or their two reserves. And we only lost to them by one run. Two of their runs should not have scored, but the umpire ruled a catch in right field a “trap,” which ended up letting two runs score. We also should have been awarded a run, but the umpire at the plate called one of our guys out at the plate, because he “didn’t touch the plate,” though he clearly slid across the plate, even walked back over it when he got up; someone in the stands on the other side said “tag him, he didn’t touch the plate!” twice—she shouted the second time. And the catcher did so, as our guy was walking toward the dugout. The umpire let it fly and called him out. We were irate to say the very least.
Anyway, Little League Baseball let us know that we should not have been eliminated, the other league’s team was disqualified from further tournament play for the year, and we were awarded our “Florida Section 8 All-Star Champions” banner. Sadly, however, the State Tournament registration was closed, and all teams were final. They wouldn’t let us in. And we know we would have won the State Championships because the other teams were hardly any competition at all. The Florida State Champions that year were ten-runned two games straight in the Senior Little League World Series in Bangor, Maine by a team from (I believe Alabama) who were actually not very good themselves. I am confident that our All-Star team that year would have made it—at least—to the Senior Little League World Series Semi-Finals, if not Champions or Runners-Up.
Part Two:
After Senior Little League ended, we tried to get enough players to sign up the following year for Big League, which consisted of 17 and 18-year-old kids. But those guys (and one girl) were either too busy with high school baseball, going off to college, or just plain no longer interested in playing baseball. We had seven players willing and able to play Big League. It wasn’t enough, and that was that.
I opted to not try out for my high school’s baseball team my first two years of high school because I was playing Junior and Senior Little League and I not only disliked half the kids on the baseball team, but I disliked all the coaches but two (pitching coach for JV and batting coach for Varsity). My Junior year, I wanted to try out, but my GPA would not allow me to play baseball; the school was hardly allowing me to stay in theatre and perform at the District Thespian Competitions. I wasn’t struggling in school because of my intelligence, though; I did not do homework. With the exception of take-home writing assignments (book reports, essays, stories, poetry, etc.), I did my homework three times: twice for Algebra and once for Geometry because I needed the practice, since math was not my strong suit. I hated how homework was mandatory for most teachers, and though I was smart, I was foolish, and defied them by not doing my homework because I felt no need to “practice,” what I already knew. That kept me from even being allowed to try out for the baseball team.
I never got the chance to play high school baseball, and even if I did, I suffered from a spontaneous pneumothorax (a collapsed lung, essentially) on two occasions. Both fell almost exactly a year apart, both during baseball season. The first kept me from physical activity for two months, the second put me out of action for four weeks.
Instead of playing organized baseball, I played a handful of pickup games with some friends over the years, but I primarily played softball just about every Sunday with my dad and the guys he’d been consistently playing with since we moved to Florida in 2000. Most of those guys watched me grow up from a six-year-old child, to a 14-year-old who would substitute run for the older/injured men who could no longer run (or run after reaching first), to a 17-year-old who would actually play every game with them for the next few years. They watched me off to college, even throwing me a nice party one Sunday after my last game permanently there.
Off to Penn State I went in August, 2013. I moved in with my grandmother in northeastern Pennsylvania, and opted to go to Penn State Wilkes-Barre (misleadingly in Lehman, PA, about a 25-minute drive from Wilkes-Barre). At PSWB, I joined the men’s baseball team, who played in the Penn State University Athletic Conference under the USCAA. I joined as an outfielder/pitcher/catcher and utility infield/outfielder. After the third practice, the first one during which I actually warmed up in a bullpen session, I realized I might have a rotator cuff problem.
Uh-oh. My rotator cuff cannot be injured. It just can’t! Maybe it was just tired and sore. But it didn’t feel right. Next practice, I was loose and warm, but I felt a slight pain in my shoulder warming up. It was a sort of clicking pain that quickly faded away. I was doing outfield drills, and threw a ball to my cutoff man, and my coach yells, “You gotta throw it in harder than that, Rambus!” I nodded and responded “You got it coach!” And next time I get the ball, I fired it in to my cutoff man, and instantly knew something was wrong when I released the ball. My arm felt like it disconnected at the shoulder, and it just swung a little bit after the throw. Not even thinking, I winced, grunted, flung my glove off my left hand and grabbed my right shoulder.
Coach asked, hardly shouting, “ya alright, Rambo?” and the pain just instantly went away. It turned into my arm just feeling like taffy for the next twenty seconds, and then feeling just perfectly fine after that. But I told my coach, “yeah, I’m good, but that one hurt, I don’t know what just happened, but if it’s alright with you, I’d like to take a minute or two.” He said “don’t worry about it, we’re going to get to BP in a little bit.”
The athletic trainer wasn’t in that night. I threw a few more times, mostly just tossing tennis balls back to the coach after each batter. There was something wrong, my shoulder wasn’t feeling right. I tossed a few pitches for BP, relatively soft and from the stretch, but full mechanics and everything. My arm felt absolutely fine. But then I threw one ball just slightly out of my normal motion, and it hurt like hell. That was the moment at which I realized that I have to throw every ball with precise mechanical motion every time, or it’s going to hurt. That’s when I realized there was seriously something wrong.
Next practice, I visited the trainer, and I played it down, because I thought it was just the stress in my muscles causing the pain. Every muscle in my back and shoulders was extremely tense and knotted up. So that practice, I didn’t throw at all. She heated the muscles and massaged them, and allowed me to perform a light workout in the gym. So the next practice, I was feeling great. I warmed up, and jumped onto a mound for a bullpen session. First two pitches were perfect. The third shot a pain from my shoulder both ways down my arm to my hand and down my back. I shrugged it off, and threw a fourth and fifth pitch: curveball and knuckleball. Both perfect. Then I got the fastball sign, and I wound up, screwed up my step and released the ball high and wild. Pain shot through my arm again. Bad enough for me to throw my glove and curse the dirt.
My coach didn’t focus on me being in pain, but rather how awful the pitch was, and he goes, “come on now, what the hell was that?” That was not the right thing to say, and I became very frustrated with him. And so I grilled him with a face that read, “really dude, are you serious? It’s obvious I’m in pain.” He told me to try again, in his still-frustrating tone. I picked my glove up, slipped it on, and took another baseball from the bucket. My sign was curveball, and I yelled “no,” and my catcher asked me, “what do you want to throw?” “Anything but a curve, Ed. Not feeling it this pitch.” I was definitely in pain, but I don’t think my coach realized. He gave me the fastball sign again. I let it fly, and it was perfect. It tingled a bit, but it wasn’t painful.
My coach said, “how about that curve again, Rambo?” and I told him “I’m not feeling it, coach,” but he insisted again. Ed gave me the sign, I nodded, and delivered. I immediately felt my whole right side go with the ball. Not only did it not curve, but because I released it so early, it would have been a brushback pitch if a batter were standing in the box. Again, my coach was not focused on me being in pain, but instead how terrible the pitch was, and he said, “you’re done, that’s it. Go back over to Knowles for outfield drills.”
“Really? Really?” I thought to myself. I understood not being pleased with the pitching, but I’m in pain; can I at least get a “go see the trainer”? But I didn’t question him, because I figured that he was just a tough coach and knew what he was doing. After all, he was coaching a college varsity baseball team. Boy, was I naïve!
After the first two back-to-back double headers in Pittsburgh and Monaca against Penn State Greater Allegheny and Penn State Beaver, I finally realized that he was not a very good coach. I realized that it wasn’t the fact that he had limited resources because our program was very low-budget; he was just a bad college coach. Over the course of the season, though I hardly played at all (7 total innings over 19 games, with two plate appearances, six pinch-running substitutions), I highly doubted his methods and abilities. We went 5-16, winning two games by forfeit. Our assistant coach would have made a better manager by far, but he kept quiet. I know not why, nor how. Any player on the team would have made a better manager.
Throughout the season, I learned how much my teammates did not like him as a baseball coach. Some of them didn’t like him on a personal level either. I simply felt as if he were managing the team more like an ignorant fanatic than a manager. My teammates agreed. Most of us spoke privately about it, some of us told him to his face how we felt. One player cursed him out during a home game, after being pulled from the mound after putting on a terrible relief performance, following a failing starter. He told the coach that he should have started him and he wouldn’t have plugged two batters on purpose (though they looked like accidents—it was funny). He walked out of the dugout and never returned to the team. I don’t blame him.
Another pitcher told him he was a “f***ing idiot,” for pulling him from the mound after three successful innings. We were in Williamsport, playing Penn College, up 3-1. To this point, Jon was halfway through the fourth inning, with a runner on first. When he got to the dugout, he was yelling, angry; he shouted to coach, who was on the mound with our reliever, “you’re an idiot.” When he came to the dugout, he spoke to the assistant coach, who happened to be a pitching coach. “He’s f***ing retarded. Who pulls a pitcher in that situation? When we’re winning, and there’s two outs? Are you serious?” and the assistant coach, Knowles, did his best to calm Jon down, and he was successful after a few minutes. But Jon was right.
Our reliever ended up giving up a double to the next batter, which scored the run from first. He walked a batter, gave up another hit, and, luckily struck out the next batter. That pitcher would end up giving up six runs in the fifth, and we lost that game 8-3. We then dropped the second game of the double-header 5-4. We should have won that second game, but the umpires ruled a Penn College player safe at the plate, though he didn’t touch third base to tag up to the plate, where he was barely safe. If he had tagged up, that call at the plate was questionable at best. That should have ended the inning, but instead, it became a three run inning. It should have never happened. But oh well.
I stayed on the team for the next season, and went to the fall training sessions. After two, I left the team. I couldn’t stand the coach anymore. And I told him that I wanted to play baseball, but I did not want to play for him, and that it was upsetting to have to say so. I thanked him for allowing me the opportunity to wear the jersey, but told him “I [felt] like [he] didn’t want me to wear the jersey and play for [him] in the first place.”
A few of us even went to the athletic director and requested he hire another manager for the baseball team. He denied our requests, mine being probably the most passive-aggressive and reasonable. That season was the coach’s last there. He was fired after, and the athletic director took another opportunity at another school, with a presumably better athletic department and higher budget.
That whole academic year though, I couldn’t play if I wanted to. Halfway through the Fall semester, I got sick, and had to actually leave school. The next, I fell ill again, and also lost my license because of a failure to pay a fine, which should not have had to be paid. This brings us to this past academic year.
Fall 2015, I didn’t join the baseball team again, although we had a new coach. I was having financial aid issues, and likely would not be allowed to even be named to the roster. The new coach was an alumnus of Penn State Wilkes-Barre, who also had played for the previous coach. He did not like the man as a coach, and did not return for his final year of eligibility after one season with that guy. Can’t blame him.
Spring 2016 went by, I could not join the team because financial aid issues kept me out of “registered” status again, as they did in the Fall. This time, I was kept out the entire semester, which resulted in my attendance not counting, and my grades could not be submitted. I didn’t get to play baseball, but I did see that the guys did pretty well in comparison to the past few years. They played more like a team, and practiced better too. It was relieving to know.
Part 3:
Between the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic year, though (essentially Summer 2015), I joined a newly-founded men’s league in Duryea, Pennsylvania. It’s not like an MSBL/MABL league, nor is it a college Summer league or anything of the sort. This league was put together by a couple guys in their late 30’s through their 50’s who were tired of playing men’s slow-pitch softball. I played on the league founder’s team.
It was actually a great season. We didn’t keep stats, other than an official book. But no individual stats or anything. My team was mostly men between the ages of 35 and 55. I was the youngest player in the league at 20. The next three youngest guys were 26, 27, and 28. One guy was 35, but threw a solid 93 MPH fastball (+/- 2 MPH). One guy was 73 and pretty frail, but he was out there doing his thing.
In this league, the Wyoming Valley Adult Baseball Association, players 35 and older may pitch up to four innings, and players under 35 may only pitch up to two innings at a time. Stealing is only allowed once the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand, but if it is a passed ball/wild pitch which hits the backstop, a runner may not advance unless it hits the dirt in front of the plate first. There are a few weird rules, but they keep the games rather competitive and fair, though the rules may need to be ironed out a bit better, and very well could change over the next few years.
This league was a fantastic idea, and I hope it grows by a huge margin in the future. It’s almost like Little League for adults! It’s basically a beer league, though we typically don’t go out and drink after the games. It sure beats being berated by a coach who only scoffs at what you’re doing wrong but will not tell you what it is that was wrong, nor how to fix the problem. No actual big figurehead managers or coaches. Just a bunch of friendly guys playing a game they love. It’s a respectful league too. Nobody takes it too seriously. When the older folks who are frail and can’t see a ball moving faster than 65 MPH, we throw slower to them—that is, if our pitcher throws faster than that!
I am almost 22 years old, and I am probably going to play old man baseball the rest of my life. Especially if it’s in a league like this!
